For artists pushing the boundaries of pop music convention, 'Alabama Song' from Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht's capitalism-satirizing, cabaret-influenced opera Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny was a tempting addition to set lists. Favorites of the 1960s counterculture moment, The Doors recorded the first high-profile pop cover in 1966, with keyboardist Ray Manzarek introducing an appropriately-named marxophone (a kind of zither) into the arrangement below Jim Morrison's world-weary croon. Fourteen years later, David Bowie - at the time straddling his Berlin and pop phases - followed in the Lizard King's footsteps, summoning the spirit of Weill and Brecht in song.

For a singer with such an impressive vocal range (he could match Luciano Pavarotti note-for-note), it's something of a surprise that Jeff Buckley didn't cover more operatic arias - the singer devoured music of pretty much any genre throughout his tragically-too-short career, covering songs from gospel and chanson, to punk and Middle English hymns (his debut album Grace features a recording of Benjamin Britten's arrangement of 'Corpus Christi Carol'). His sole contribution to opera-infused pop was a live performance of the beautiful and tortured 'Dido's Lament' from Henry Purcell's baroque opera Dido and Aeneas at the Southbank Centre's 1995 Meltdown Festival, mercifully recorded for posterity. A small contribution, but a perfectly-formed one.

Billie Holiday - 'Summertime'

An opera aria-turned-jazz standard, 'Summertime' has been recorded (by one conservative estimate) over 33,000 times. George Gershwin's song is sung throughout his 1935 opera Porgy and Bess, but he couldn’t have imagined the success it would achieve away from the lyric stage. The composer spent 20 months fine-tuning his score for the opera to make it sound as close to a folk song as he could, and his perfectionism paid off - in 'Summertime' he created a wonderful, woozy melody that would live on through renditions by artists including Sam Cooke, The Doors, R.E.M, and Massive Attack. Billie Holiday's cover was the first to emerge, entering the charts a year after the opera's premiere. The rest, as they say, is history.

‘American Dream, American Dream’, sings Anna Nicole in Mark-Anthony Turnage’s opera, ‘I’m gonna rape that goddamn American dream, I’m gonna tear it open and lap up the cream’. It's one of many operas that question the American Dream, in which anyone with ambition, talent and a strong work ethic can achieve fame and fortune – and ask how desirable or attainable that dream really is:

Giacomo Puccini's La fanciulla del West examines American ways of life both good and bad. The corrupt sheriff Jack Rance and the homesick miners trapped in California by their desire to make a quick fortune demonstrate the dangers of a society that places great value on money and social status. But Puccini's heroine Minnie has typically ‘American’ virtues: bravery, honesty and a sense of adventure. Ultimately, Minnie’s integrity gives her the courage to reject conventional dreams of financial and social success and leave California for a new life with her lover Dick Johnson.

Benjamin Britten and W.H. Auden created an optimistic vision of American society in Paul Bunyan, which celebrates the same pioneering spirit that makes Puccini’s Minnie so likeable. The gentle giant Paul Bunyan brings together a community of lumberjacks to tame the ‘virgin forest’ of America, and later helps them to find work as farmers, manual labourers and businessmen. In this cheerful operetta, America is seen as a land of exciting opportunities (one or two satirical snipes from Auden aside).

Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht on the other hand, took a far darker view, making America a byword for greed and corruption. In 1931's Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, three criminals found a city in the American desert devoted to hedonism and financial profit. The consumerist paradise soon becomes a hotbed of corruption and inhumanity. The hero Jimmy is condemned to death for being unable to pay a bar bill. When he appeals to God the people tell him that God cannot punish them – they are already in Hell.

Other operas show how America’s opportunities are not available to everyone. Rose Maurrant, the blue-collar heroine of Weill’s Street Scene, knows that her boss’s promises to help her ‘sing on Broadway’ will come to nothing. She and her poet boyfriend Sam Kaplan nourish ambitions to escape their humdrum existence, but even this dream is denied when Rose's father murders her mother. In George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, the African-American community of Catfish Row is condemned to perpetual poverty due to racial prejudice. Love can flourish (like the tender passion between Porgy and Bess), but the only character to profit financially in this ghetto is the drug-dealer Sportin’ Life, who eventually lures Bess away with the promise of a glamorous life in New York.

Later in the 20th century, composers questioned whether the American Dream is desirable even if achieved. Leonard Bernstein portrayed the boredom of comfortable American suburbia and the claustrophobia of the prosperous middle-class family in Trouble in Tahiti and A Quiet Place– having explored racial prejudice and gang warfare in his hit Romeo and Juliet-inspired musical West Side Story. Stewart Wallace's Harvey Milktells the true story of a politician who longs for ‘an American Dream without prejudice’ but is assassinated for his beliefs. And the title character of Nixon in China and J. Robert Oppenheimer in Doctor Atomic, at one point seen as icons of the American success story, are depicted by John Adams as tormented souls plagued with self-doubt.

Anna Nicole runs from 11–24 September 2014. Tickets are still available.The first performance is open to students only, with tickets priced £1–£25. Find out more about ROH Students. ROH Students is generously made possible by the Bunting Family and Simon Robey.

Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny is staged with generous philanthropic support from The Kurt Weill Foundation for Music, Inc., New York, NY, Stefan Sten Olsson, Richard and Ginny Salter, Hamish and Sophie Forsyth and The Royal Opera Circle.

With today being Thanksgiving in the United States - the day of turkey eating (aside from those pardoned), family and American Football - we thought we'd take our pick of operas and ballets from over the pond.

'Rubies' from Jewels - George Balanchine

That most American of dance pieces, 'Rubies' is one of three elements of Balanchine's Jewels cycle alongside 'Diamonds' and 'Emeralds'. Soaked in razzmatazz and featuring sparkly choreography, 'Rubies' is set to the music of Stravinsky, the Russian composer who became a U.S. citizen in 1945. As to what inspired the work, one story claims Balanchine had the idea when purchasing a ring for his muse, ballerina Suzanne Farrell. 'Rubies' is often performed on its own and is a staple of The Royal Ballet's repertory.

Satyagraha - Philip Glass

It may be based on Gandhi's philosophy of non-violence and sung in Sanskrit, but Satyagraha is arguably one of the finest American operatic achievements. A prime example of operatic minimalism, the opera makes up one part of Glass's 'Portrait' trilogy, alongside Einstein on the Beach and Akhnaten. The piece is divided into three acts, each related to a historical figure: Leo Tolstoy, Rabindranath Tagore and Martin Luther King Jr..

Dr Atomic - John Adams

With a libretto based largely upon declassified US military documents surrounding the Trinity test - the detonation of the world's first nuclear weapon in 1945 - Dr Atomic focuses on the stresses and strains upon the scientists who ushered in the nuclear age. First performed in 2005 at San Francisco Opera, the original production saw Royal Opera favourite Gerald Finley singing the role of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the so-called 'father of the atomic bomb'.

Porgy and Bess - George Gershwin

The opera that spawned jazz standards 'Summertime' and 'I got plenty o' nuttin'', Porgy and Bess was a trailblazing work at the time of its premiere in 1935. The opera tells the tale of an African-American neighbourhood in Charleston, South Carolina during the 1920s – something of an operatic first in terms of focus. Originally run on Broadway, the production wasn't seen as a legitimate opera until the 1970s when it was re-evaluated. The opera has been hugely successful since its premiere, despite controversy surrounding portrayals of African-American characters.

Rainforest - Merce Cunningham

Rainforest was inspired by Cunningham’s childhood memories of Northwest America and is set in an abstract space with the soundtrack of birds and forest chatter. The movement reflects animal behavior and Cunningham’s interest in nature – the choreographer filled sketchbooks with his drawings of animals and birds. In collaboration with Cunningham, Andy Warhol created the décor Silver Cloud – several enormous silver pillows that gently swirl and bounce off the stage and dancers as they move through the space.